A Meeting in Captivity
by rogue-scholar07
Summary: During her brief time imprisoned in Cloud Tower, Griffin reflects on her past, namely what she lost when she betrayed the Coven for the Company of Light. At the same time, Darcy has a few questions for her former headmistress.


**I do not own the characters or settings used in this work of fanfiction; those belong to Rainbow and Nickelodian. This is written purely for my own amusement and no profit is gained from its writing. **

**Summary: Sort-of AU. Griffin takes a trip down memory lane during the time she was locked in Cloud Tower, and Darcy decides it's the perfect time to get some answers about her past. **

**A Meeting in Captivity**

It had been a long time since Elphaba Griffin thought about her past in such detail, but then again, there hadn't been sufficient reason to do so. She had made a new life for herself since the fall of Domino. She started off as a young instructor and clawed her way up to the title of Headmistress at the prestigious Cloud Tower Academy of Witchcraft. Any outsiders looking at her life would think she had everything she could have wanted.

Oh, how wrong they were. She left some very important things behind when she left the Whisperian Coven and joined the Company of Light. Friends, lovers, family—all had been left in the ashes of her former life. However, one of the three seemed to have returned to her in an unusual manner.

Eh, who was she kidding? Family was the reason she was stuck in this makeshift cell.

Twenty years ago, she fell hard and fast for a charming young wizard the Ancestral Witches summoned to help bring them closer to world domination. He was smart and attractive and very powerful. Any young witch would have died to be his partner, and when he chose _her_, she damn near swooned (not that she would admit it to a soul, living or dead). They got along well, and it wasn't too long until things got heated between them. Thinking of some of the things they did made her blush to this day. Oh, to be young and shameless again! Or not, actually; shameless came with a hefty price tag when one wasn't careful.

Who knew two simple words like "I'm pregnant" were enough to make the legendary Valtor faint?

Needless to say, she was banned from raiding planetary libraries for their sacred scrolls for some time. She thought she would never get to go on adventures with him again, and was justifiably jealous when he was sent away on a long-term mission to Domino with another partner. Quite fortunately for her, he happened to be back on Whisperia giving a mission status report when their daughter was born. Even all these years later, she doubted she could have done it without him by her side.

Their daughter…Dragon, what a beautiful child she was! A soft dusting of brown hair covered her scalp and curious golden eyes tracked every motion her parents made. She favored her father, although he often argued that the child inherited her mother's facial features. Griffin didn't buy that line for a second; the girl might have her cheekbones, but she quite obviously had Valtor's nose. Regrettably, Griffin was too great an asset to the Coven to stay on the sidelines long. As soon as their daughter (named Darcy by her father, after a character in a novel he'd once read) was weaned, she was placed with a nanny and Griffin went back out into the field.

It was at that point that everything went to hell. She started second-guessing the Coven's goals, and after they started destroying worlds instead of simply taking their valuables, she'd had enough. She would not raise her daughter around people like this! Faragonda literally saved her ass by opening that portal to Alfea and offering her a spot in the newly-formed Company of Light after she turned on her mistresses during a mission. She hoped to find her daughter once the Ancestresses were sealed, but that never came to pass. She raided every safe house and hide-away she could find, but to no avail. Darcy was gone.

And yet, many years later, Darcy returned to her as a freshman student with no idea who she really was. Griffin kept it that way, never revealing her true identity to the girl. Although by now, the teen must have figured it out; she was every bit as cunning and intelligent as her father. Which was why Griffin wasn't surprised to see the young woman walk into her holding area. Alone.

"How long have you known?" Griffin asked, looking the younger witch in the eyes.

"Since last year." Darcy answered evenly. "I almost expected you to reach out to me, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you didn't. You did abandon me, after all."

"I never abandoned you." Griffin hissed. "I searched all over the known realms for you, Darcy! Every Coven outpost and safe-house on every moon and sizable asteroid I could find to get you back!"

Something sparked in Darcy's golden eyes. "So _that_'s why we moved around so much." She realized. "She wanted to keep you from taking me away from the Coven."

"It worked, didn't it?" The violet-haired woman ruefully admitted. "You're here, carrying out the legacy of the Ancestral Witches by trying to destroy an entire realm, and I'm in a cage."

"Destroy?" Darcy quirked an eyebrow. "Why would I want to destroy Magix? The goal is to take over and mold it in our image."

"Perhaps you should remind your younger sister of that fact, then." Griffin remarked. "She seemed overly eager to carry out her assignment on Magix proper." Her daughter frowned.

"Her temper and Icy's ego are going to bring about our end if they don't learn to keep themselves in check."

"Always the cunning one, just like your father. If he weren't frozen in Obsidian, I'm sure he would be proud of you."

"You do realize that I still can't let you leave here, don't you?" the Dark witch ran her fingers along the edge of the magical barrier separating the two of them.

"I know." Griffin placed her own hands on the barrier. "One bit of advice, however: trust your instincts. You'll never be more than a sidekick to Icy if you don't."

"And why should I take advice from a traitor to the Coven?" Darcy jerked her fingers away from the barrier, glaring angrily at her birthmother.

"Because she's the headmistress and you're the upstart who needed the aid of a spoiled ice princess and a walking natural disaster to take the title away from her." The faintest hint of a smirk crossed the older woman's dark-tinted lips. "I didn't become this powerful by playing second fiddle to anyone, my dear."

"We'll see about that." The brunette witch snarled, turning violently on her heels and walking toward the door. "Come this time tomorrow, all of Magix will be ours!"

"Only if your sisters stick with their roles." The elder witch commented. "Or can successfully prevent a rescue operation on the school." Both of which she severely doubted were possible. If she knew Faragonda—and after all these years she should know the witch-turned-fairy better than Glinda sometimes knew herself—, there would be students making an attempt to free both her and the captive witches tonight or tomorrow morning. Youth came with great strength and confidence, sure, but it also came with a fair amount of folly, and if past experiences were any judge of character, Stormy and Icy hadn't learned to counterbalance that folly just yet.

"I have nothing more to say to you, _mother_." Darcy spat the word as if it were poison in her mouth, golden eyes glaring daggers at the woman who'd brought her into the world. "We have the power now!"

"Don't gloat until you have actually won the battle, dear." A somewhat-sadistic smile played on Elphaba's lips. "I birthed you into this world, and if need be, I will take you back out of it." Having no good rebuttal, Darcy left the room with a growl, slamming the door behind her and leaving Elphaba Griffin alone once again.

Hmm. That went much better than she'd anticipated. Maybe there was some hope for Darcy after all?


End file.
